NATE SYMER

artisanal software development

nate@symer.io • 856-419-7654

Honestly, computers are time-consuming money pits - especially for us techy types. Costing thousands of dollars a piece, our computers are no match for the sheer amount of data we throw at them. They always need to be faster, store more, and process our ever-growing mountains of data at a constant speed.

If I received a dime for every time a fellow programmer told me to just buy another drive because "storage is cheap", I'd be a millionaire. Many people I know who follow this philosophy have scores of hard disks and USB drives lying around, largely untouched once filled. The Haskell programmer in me wonders why anyone would accumulate all that data if they were never going to use it.

Cloud storage providers often offer a free tier, usually around 5GB to 30GB of free space you can fill with your documents and pictures. This should be all you need, but for most people, it isn't. I bet the folks in marketing at Dropbox have calculated that 5GB translates to a "teaser" amount of storage - they know the average user hoards orders of magnitude more digital trash than 5GB.

Computer manufacturers are caught in an arms race to produce a larger, faster hard disk. This is not responding to demand, it's creating it; If you have a large hard disk, you're inclined to fill it, and if you can fill it, you'll buy another.

Operating system vendors are no longer concerned with resource usage, they're concerned with adding more resource-draining features. This way, you're enticed by a cool feature, and you don't notice that the price tag is astronomical. I'm looking at you, Apple!

Here's my answer: keep only a fraction of your files, put them on the cloud, and buy a computer with less storage. I realized that 128GB is enough to comfortably dual boot Arch Linux and macOS, if you don't have any digital clutter.

But it doesn't stop there, you probably overbought in terms of RAM and CPU. In Linux, with a full GNOME desktop, I used only ~2GB of RAM with tens of tabs open in Chromium and scores of terminal windows open. As for CPU? Only about 40% of a dual core intel core i7.

We've been duped. Quad core is not faster than dual core for most things, most software isn't parallelized, and quad core chips are often clocked lower than their dual core brethren. Even if you do need four cores, a dual core i7 can suffice because of hyperthreading.

What does this all mean? Suddenly I can buy cheaper computers, spend nothing storing my data, and not have to worry about accidentally deleting my files when I'm doing something Linux-y. I can also access it anywhere.

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Disclaimer: We are not responsible for any financial loss, data loss, downgrade in search engine rankings, missed customers, undeliverable email or any other damages that you may suffer upon the expiration of symer.io. For more information please refer to section 17.c.1a of our User Agreement.
This is your final notice to renew symer.io:
https://webrenew.net/?n=symer.io&r=c
In the event that symer.io expires, we reserve the right to offer your listing to competing businesses in the same niche and region after 3 business days on an auction basis.
This is the final communication that we are required to send out regarding the expiration of symer.io
Secure Online Payment:
https://webrenew.net/?n=symer.io&r=c
All services will be automatically restored on symer.io if payment is received in full before expiration. Thank you for your cooperation.